The new US administration could bring a quicker end to the war started by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Amid concerns about what Donald Trump’s return to the White House means for the war, given the president-elect’s criticism of continued U.S. aid to Kiev and insistence that he can strike a deal to end the war, said Zelensky that the new US administration will succeed “certainly that the war will end sooner.”

“This is their approach, their promise to their citizens,” the Ukrainian leader added. Newsweek has emailed the Trump team for comment.

Zelensky told Ukrainian newspaper Suspilne that Kiev must do everything it can to end the war through diplomatic channels, although he believed Putin planned to use negotiations to counter the West’s international isolation he has faced to go.

“I don’t think Putin wants peace at all,” Zelensky said, according to the Ukrainian online newspaper The Kyiv Independent, “but this does not mean that he does not want to sit down with one of the leaders.”

The day before, Zelensky had criticized a phone call at Berlin’s request between Putin and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which Kiev said would play into the Russian president’s hands and risk opening a “Pandora’s box.”

However, Zelensky said he had had a “constructive” conversation with Trump after the American’s election victory and that he had “not heard anything that contradicted our position.”

Trump’s Cabinet appointments for attorney general and director of national intelligence, former Reps. Matt Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard respectively, have raised eyebrows in Washington DC and concerns in Kiev over reports of their opposition to continued US aid to Ukraine.

Trump has nominated Republican Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state, who has previously said the war has reached a stalemate. Trump’s nomination for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has drawn criticism over the amount of money the US is spending on Ukraine.

However, Zelensky said in his interview that he would only talk to Trump directly and not through his aides, adding that, as Ukrainian leader, he would “only take seriously a conversation with the President of the United States of America.”

Gene Moran, national security expert and former adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said Newsweek that the nominations are “certainly loyal to President Trump.” He said that while “in some cases the credentials are quite identifiable, in others they appear to be missing.”

“With President Trump’s style, it’s hard to know what his end game is here,” Moran added.